


For largest Woman’s Hearth I knew

by LiveOakWithMoss



Series: Silmarillion Prompts [40]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Actual wine moms, By which I mean wine moms in the countryside making out, F/F, Post Flight of the Noldor, Some grief but also humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 00:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7597135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveOakWithMoss/pseuds/LiveOakWithMoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anairë and Eärwen escape Tirion on a much needed vacation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For largest Woman’s Hearth I knew

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Elleth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/gifts).



> 0\. Title from Emily Dickinson.

Anairë reached back and helped Eärwen over a fallen log. Eärwen raised her head, brushing a hank of golden hair out of her sweaty face and snatching her trailing gown out of the eager grasp of the brambles.

Anairë fought a smile. “I told you to wear something practical.”

“I thought you meant something with, I don’t know,” Eärwen puffed, “short sleeves and no boning in the bodice.”

Anairë laughed out loud. “I meant more along the lines of: what would my daughter have worn?”

Eärwen gave up on maintaining the loose golden hair curling over her shoulders and twisted it up into a knot on top of her head. She broke a twig off a nearby tree and jabbed it through the whole mass of hair to secure it. “Oh, as if you didn’t spend whole years of Irissë’s adolescence trying to get her _out_ of those incessant trousers.”

“I gave up in the end,” Anairë protested, taking Eärwen’s hand again and leading her down the trail that was only faintly visible in the furzy undergrowth. “In exchange for her no longer stealing her brothers’ britches I got the tailor to make her that handsome leather suit that she liked so much.”

“Yes, I remember. I remember Tyelkormo walking straight into a lamppost the first time he saw her in it.”

“She was striking, wasn’t she?”

“She still is.” Eärwen’s small, soft hand squeezed Anairë’s. “Dear, do you notice that you keep referring to your children – ”

“Watch your feet here,” interrupted Anairë. “The ground gets uneven – I can’t believe you’re barefoot, you’re wearing pearls but not shoes…”

“ - in the past tense,” said Eärwen, and hopped over a stone. “You know they are not lost, don’t you?”

Anairë raised her head, eyes scanning the horizon as her jaw set. Eärwen reached up to brush the corner of Anairë’s mouth.

“Anairë.”

Anairë did not answer, but her long, dark eyes narrowed and she strode forward, Eärwen trotting slightly to keep up with her longer paces.

“Anairë,” Eärwen tried again, and then gave up, concentrating on not panting for breath as they moved swiftly down the path.

“How do you not see,” said Anairë jerkily, after a while, “that they might as well be lost? They might as well be dead, all of them, all of those who took flight away from us…”

“But they are not!”

“Yet,” said Anairë, and there was something like a snarl in her voice. “Not _yet_  dead, as far as we know. But they go with a Doom over them, to unknown lands, unknown darkness, certain peril. By damn, Eärwen, of course they will die!”

“Anairë!”

“And even if they live a score of centuries,” Anairë went on relentlessly. “It will be the same as far as I am concerned. Either way I will never see them again!” She stopped, and Eärwen ran into her back, clutching at her arms to keep herself from overbalancing. “So you see,” Anairë said, in her normal voice, “it is easier for me to start thinking of them as lost – as dead – now. It will be good practice for the future.” She turned back, her expression flat, and saw Eärwen’s bright eyes standing with tears. The harsh lines Anairë’s face had drawn into faded, her mouth softening in remorse. “Oh, damn. I am sorry.” She took both of Eärwen’s hands now. “You know how I can let my passions and rages run ahead of me. I did not mean for now, of all times – that was not the intent of this excursion.” She swung Eärwen’s hands helplessly. “Nerdanel’s cabin is just ahead.”

Eärwen smiled and blinked, two tears tracing tracks down her cheeks before being shaken away. “I have dreamed of them,” she whispered. “They are strong, they are whole.”

Anairë smiled back at her, though the smile did not quite reach her eyes. “I like your dreams.”

They walked the last half-mile to Nerdanel’s small cabin in silence.

 

* * *

 

Nerdanel greeted them with widespread arms and a bottle of white liquor. Nerdanel, whose strong, beautiful arms were for the first time in years completely devoid of the copper bands she once wore on them, pulled them both close to her in a tangle of arms and bumped heads, and did not let them go for several minutes.

Then she bent down to kiss Eärwen on the cheek and made a face. She looked up at Anairë. “She’s all sweaty. What did you do to her?”

“It is not my fault milady the swan maiden of the Teleri goes hiking in floor-length skirts and a column of pearls at her throat.”

Eärwen batted Nerdanel away and kicked at Anairë. “One strand is not a column, you devil! And you made it sound like there would be a true path for us to follow, not merely a track made by what has to have been an intoxicated goat.”

“Ahh, child,” intoned Nerdanel, crossing her arms and bobbing her head like a sage. “We have strayed far from the true path and must now carve out one for ourselves. Uncertain is the path trod by the one to whom truth has become a lie – and it has poison oak, sometimes. That means no bare feet, you alabaster loon.”

“I am being ganged up on,” said Eärwen, ducking between them, her makeshift twist of hair falling haphazardly down her back. She scooted through the front door of the cabin, nimbly snatching the bottle of liquor from Nerdanel as she did. “Now I shall make you beg if you want a drink.”

Nerdanel winked at Anairë. “You first.”

 

* * *

 

They built up a fire and sat long beside it, talking and laughing and drinking deep. The fire was hot, and soon Eärwen had shrugged free of her gown, baring herself to the waist like she was a girl running on the shores of Alqualondë, and Nerdanel and Anairë had both undone their blouses.

After many hours, Nerdanel got to her feet, lifting her heavy auburn hair away from her sweaty neck and fanning herself with her free hand. “I am going to take myself away to bed before I drink myself into a fever,” she said. “I shall leave you to finish the last of Tyelkormo’s murder whiskey, you wretched lushes.”

Anairë waved good night, then stretched out by the fire, beckoning to Eärwen. “Pass the bottle.”

Eärwen took a generous sip and cradled the bottle, showing no signs of relinquishing it. “Why don’t you come and get it?”

“ _Princess_.”

“I do not take that epithet as an insult,” said Eärwen, tossing her head. “I just appreciate you finally acknowledging my status.” She held the haughtiness as long as she could, then broke it by hiccupping slightly.

“Speaking of intoxicated goats,” said Anairë fondly.

“You know,” Eärwen murmured, as Anairë conceded to rise to hands and knees and began to crawl over to her. “It was rather my suspicion that you had brought me up here to this place of seclusion with intent…”

“I intended,” said Anairë softly, coming closer until she was braced on her arms above Eärwen’s supine body, “I intended for us to get away from the funereal grief of Tirion, and the pitying and accusatory eyes that we face on every street corner. I came to shed our grief as bereft mothers, as abandoned wives – ”

“Anairë,” said Eärwen, with a sigh, as she let her hand come to rest on Anairë’s collarbones. “I truly meant that in a more lighthearted and, dare I say, suggestive way.”

“I know,” said Anairë, and smiled. “I did not say there was just one reason I brought you here. Just like there was not just a single reason I stayed for you, my dearest friend.” And she kissed Eärwen, first on her bare left breast, over her heart, then on her throat, and finally, on her lips.

“I knew it,” said Milady the Swan Maiden of the Teleri and sometime Alabaster Loon, and wound her arms around Anairë’s neck.


End file.
